The Pure360 Weekly Email and Digital Roundup: Back to the Future, wearable tech and Facebook lead ads

It can be tricky to keep an eye on what’s happening in the fast-paced world of email and digital marketing, so to save you time we’ve provided you with a quick round-up of the latest and greatest digital developments of the week that we think will be useful to power your campaigns and future planning.

The Direct Marketing Association have released 2015’s CAB this week and it makes for some fascinating reading.

This year, it’s good news for us, as consumers and marketers agree that email is their preferred contact channel, with a whopping 74% of consumers indicating that they want to receive emails from brands they know.

Another big boost has been to the use of social media as a contact channel, with 30% of 18-24 year olds reporting this as their preferred contact channel. This means we, as marketers, need to expand our use of social media and rate it on par with email as a contact channel (depending on our target age group).

On the topic of social media…

Facebook have recently released a B2B game changer, called lead ads. Having already conquered the slightly softer sell of B2C advertising, lead ads have been designed to quickly allow users to sign up to receive information from businesses, such as quotes and technical specifications.

This has cut out the clunky transfer-to-company-website situation we’ve had previously and instead offers users a call to action button in their newsfeed that reads “sign up” or “get a quote”. These have been shown to outperform website links in A/B testing, so lead ads are definitely something that should be factored into your social media advertising budget.

Watchmakers are embracing wearable technology

Watchmakers, Fossil, have this week released a Fossil Q line with four accessories that run on Android technology. This signals that even the most traditional of companies are beginning to embrace the role of wearable technologies.

The new Fossil watches sync up with your smartphone, track your activity levels and alert you when you receive an important call, text, or notification. It’s still early days for these new gadgets, but keep an eye out for what they have in store for the future.

Back to the Future… of gadgets

Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock this week, you might be mistaken for thinking we’re back in the 80’s again!

Back to the Future and Star Wars have returned with a vengeance, and they’ve got us geek-ing out over gadgets that the BttF directors imagined we’d have in the future, as well as the technology that Star Wars have highlighted we might have to look forward to!

One hotly anticipated technology release this week is Android’s Marshmallow OS, which has the ability to learn your sharing behaviour, the people with whom you share and the apps you use. Remember us talking about customer intelligence? This takes it to a whole new level, with even smartphones now assisting us in our tireless search for customer data.

Make your choice

We’ve talked about the importance of giving your customers choice when it comes to the channel in which you communicate with them, but what about using the words “choose” or “choice” in the subject line itself?

Experian Marketing Services found that companies whose email campaigns contained these words in the subject line saw 22% higher revenue per email, a 46% increase in transaction rates and a whopping 117% increase in transaction-to-click rates. Food for thought when it comes to preparing your next email subject line.

My book of the week

This week’s book to read is “Thinking Fast & Slow” by Daniel Kahneman. In this book, Daniel explains that we are more likely to think very differently to how we behave as our brains are split into two parts – the thinking which is slow and thorough and our instinctive which acts very fast.

He goes on to describe how our brains are wired to take shortcuts to save energy and as decision makers, we trust the quick answers our brain makes. He also explains that our brains shut down when faced with too much choice, and as consumers our buying choices are made based on what the brain already knows.

Because of this, we as marketers need to pay special attention to targeting consumers based on their behaviours with predictions on what they are more likely to purchase whilst also reducing the amount of choice available. It also points to how repetition and user stories can resonate and increase the likelihood of purchase. Definitely a must read for the marketer that puts the consumer at the heart of everything!

We’re sure this has given you some food for thought when it comes to creating your next campaigns. See you next week, folks!